In Burbank -- no money, so no cops

Published: August 9, 2000 12:00 AM

When residents of the village dial 624-9200 to get their police department, no one will answer.

Village council has suspended department operations indefinitely because of lack of funds. And the department no longer has a police chief.

On Monday, Mayor Don Hopkins told council he would not recommend interim police chief Tom Williams be taken off probation and moved to the position permanently. Williams recently completed a six-month probation period.

Hopkins said it would not be in the best interest of the village to make Williams chief. He declined further comment.

Tuesday evening, Williams said he had received no official notification of council's action. "I was planning on working tomorrow," he said. "I haven't been told anything else."

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Mayor's Court is scheduled Thursday, he said. "I'm required by law to get there."

He said he is aware the village is having financial problems. He hasn't been paid in a month but that isn't unusual. He and the other officers have waited for their pay before.

For three weeks in June he said he closed the department because they hadn't been paid. But they stayed, Williams said. "We were all hoping things would get better."

He feels council hoped fines from citations would generate enough to cover the cost of the department. But that didn't happen, and he said that may have been one of the reasons why he wasn't given the chief's position permanently.

Officer Jamie Charlton has worked in the village four months and waited through the lengthy council meeting to see if she would be paid. She was relieved to be one of the four employees who got checks at the end of Monday's meeting.

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With only $2,619 in the bank and a small amount of money to be deposited, council divvied up the money. Charlton received $552.70. Checks also were issued for Williams, $667.95; solicitor Alan Michelson, $638.45; and park employee Leo Rowe, $274.50.

"I really didn't want to have to suspend the operation of the police department," Hopkins said. He said the village needs to get its finances in order and then see how it can proceed.

"I'm not happy about it one bit, the reason being, it took a long time to get it going," councilman Tim Reed, chairman of the safety committee, said.

And even though there is no police department there are still expenses, he said, "We bought a '98 cruiser, equipped it and now we have no department."

The cost was roughly $10,000, he said. "We have to come up with that yet."

Reed feels if the mayor and some of the members of council had just let the department do its job it would still be functioning. "The protocol in this village for the past two years, and probably longer than that, is the police department has been under the safety committee," he said.

He was out of town for three weeks because of a family illness and while he was gone council decided to run an ad seeking a new police chief.

"That was done without my knowledge, it never came before my committee," Reed said. "No police officer in this village has ever had an evaluation under the current mayor, and that includes Chief Williams up to last night."

As the village struggles to get its finances in order, police calls will be handled by the Wayne County Sheriff's Office. The sheriff's dispatch number is 264-3333 or 9-1-1 for emergencies.

"I'm hoping it's only going to last a short time," Reed said,."I apologize to the residents of the village, someone should."